Baseball fans know that an important trade deadline is coming. And with those extra wildcard spots being added to this year’s post-season, MLB general manager’s everywhere are busy-busy-busy — even if only as ‘sellers’ as the Cubs are [sigh].
The trade deadline is important because in order for a player to be eligible to play for a team in the post-season, he must be on their roster by July 31. We’e already seen a number of teams complete deals to swap stars, journeymen, players-to-be-named-later, HiPo’s (high potential prospects) and cash, as they vie to position their rosters for their playoff runs.
Naturally, all this led me to think about YOUR team at YOUR company.
Look around. How many of people in your department are no longer as good a fit as you once thought them to be? Is that because they’ve changed? Is it because the requirements of their job have changed? Because you’ve changed?
The point is that times change and sometimes those who were excellently matched for a particular job, no longer are. Not that they’re problems that have to be dealt with, mind you; maybe they’ve just plateaued in one way or another.
Now if you’ve got people like this in your department, it stands to reason that others have similar situations in their departments. So wouldn’t it be something if it became standard operating procedure for companies to have Trade Deadlines, too? Here’s what that might look like:
- “I’ll give you John and Mary for Fred and a couple of upgraded printers.”
- “You give me someone who can write a crisp one-page memo and I’ll give you someone who can answer the phone within two rings.”
- “I’ll give you someone who has great rapport with the IT group in exchange for someone who works well with Accounting.”
- “You give me all of your direct reports, except Joe, and I’ll give you all of mine, except Nancy!”
The possibilites are seemingly endless. But the bigger point is to remind you of two essential things:
- THING ONE – Don’t define people by the work they do. Define them by who they really are, and treat them with the utmost respect at all times.
- THING TWO – Consider how you might do a better job of matching each employee’s particular talents and intersts with the work that needs to be done.
Of course if you can’t facilitate that kind of match within your department, you might want to check into what other departments are looking for. Who knows, you might actually be able to do some sort of trade! And the mere process of getting out there and seeing what’s going on in other areas of the company will serve both you and your department in ways far greater than you imagine.
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Original Source: http://www.ggci.com/blog/2004/07/trade-deadlines-arent-just-for.htm